Trying to Get a Rise

This is from an email that I recently sent a friend of my regarding some questions had about first time bread making. I'm no master-baker, but I have learned a few things from trial and error. Previous to this email, I told Keith about an article that would be helpful, but I couldn't remember the author's name....

September 27th, 2011
Correspondence between Adam and Keith

The guy's name is Jim Lahey, just like Jim Lahey from Trailer Park Boys. I should have remembered. Here is the article: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/08/dining/081mrex.html.

 Also, look at the myriad recipes available at http://www.kingarthurflour.com. Here are some changes I have used with success:

 Up the flour to 4 cups, use 2-2 1/2 teaspoons of salt, use very warm but not quite hot water. Read this article fully because it has some techniques that will be fun to mess with Here is what I do:

1. Combine all ingredients. Add water until the dough is slightly past the "shaggy" stage referenced in recipe. Humidity will have a surprising effect. I think it looks like thick goop. Do not knead the dough. The act of mixing thoroughly is enough.

2. Let the dough sit covered for about an hour at room temperature. If it's cold in the house, find a warm spot. Play around with the time, though, because you might need to adjust for temperature.

3. Put the dough in the fridge for as long as needed, up to about a week. The dough should have at least 8 hours to do its thing in the fridge. If you're making dough for a same-day meal, let the dough sit out for 4+ hours at room temperature with no refrigeration.

4. To bake, cut a piece of dough for your needs and put the rest back in the fridge. Allow dough to come to room temperature, usually 1 to 1 1/2 hours.

Pizza:

1. Preheat oven to 450.

2. Grease, flour or apply corn meal to a pan.

3. With greased hands (use olive oil), start working the dough into a flat disc. The dough should be fairly loose, so do try not to make any holes.
 
    a. If the dough is too loose, add small amounts of flour to tighten it up. In either case, the dough might stop wanting to respond and actually start to pull back into itself. This is called recalcitrance. Let the dough sit for 10-15 minutes and it will bend to your will once more.

4. Stretch the dough out using the palm of your hand. After forming the disc, place it on the palm of your left hand and either guide dough down with your right hand, or let gravity do it if your dough is loose enough. If you have a preferred formation method, apply now.

5. Place the dough on the pan. Let it sit for about 15 minutes.

6. Bake the dough until some of the high spots start to get dark brown. Most of the rest of the dough, however, should look somewhat less than done.

7. Remove pan from oven and dress your pie with whatever toppings you see fit.

8. Place pan in oven and bake until done.

9. Eat.

Steaming Loaf:

1. Preheat oven to 450. You can try 500, if you're feeling lucky...

2. Grease, flour or apply corn meal to a pan.

3. Lightly dust a flat surface with extra bread flour.

4. Take your lump of dough and play with it a little. It should remain wet, but not as wet as the pizza dough. Knead for just a few minutes.

5. Let the dough rise for probably about an hour at room temperature in a lightly floured, covered vessel. Watch it, though. It should maybe double in size.

6. Remove dough from vessel. Now, "knock it down". Do this by folding the dough once or twice to get some of the air out.

7. Form the dough into the final desired shape. This could be a simple ball, a tube like shape for baguettes, or get crafty and braid the dough.

8. Let the dough sit for about a half an hour, covered. It will rise again.

9. Before baking, you can two finishing methods, or do nothing:

     a. Spray the loaf thoroughly with water, and spray again in oven about 3-5 minutes after it starts baking. This will yield a dull, rough-looking finish.
 
     b. Paint the dough with olive oil, covering the entire surface of the dough. Herbed olive oil is tasty, too. This finish is slightly less rough-looking than option a, and has a much softer crust. Also is tastier.

10. Bake bread until done. Usually this is when several parts of the crust become dark brown, if not black. If bubbles form in the surface, they will be the first to change color. If this happens, wait until non-bubbly parts turn dark.

11. Remove from oven, let sit for 15 minutes or so.

12. Enjoy.

Let me know if you have any more questions!

Beginning of Fall

From 09.28.11 Fall

I left work snarky and tired. All I wanted to do was go home for the night and park myself in front of a television and become zombified. My thick cotton uniform pants were about a thousand degrees too hot for my legs, and even though it wasn't very hot outside the car remained stuffy. Eva was gone for another night and the idea of going home to an empty house and kicking back was thrilling. Even as I drove, my mind settled in to the anticipation of drool slowly crawling out of the corner of my mouth as the TV endlessly rambled on in the otherwise quiet house. Nothing could be better! I pictured my self waking, startled by a loud infomercial, deciding to have a cigarette on the stoop and play games on my phone. And then I thoughT how nice the sun would be as it set over downtown, streams of light piercing through the trees and around the house that kept my side-yard mostly dark and cool. And I thought what a nice photo that would make. It occurred to me then that I wouldn't take that photo. My nice little day dream on my drive home was quickly sucked away by the realization that, in fact, I would not go home and sleep on my couch. It was a fact that I would not be woken from my blasé slumber by an electric barker. I wouldn't do these things because there were other things to be done. I would need to pay bills, or make dinner. Laundry was an option, so was bathing. There was just simply too much to do that should rather be done than sleeping away an entire evening. The idea was a thing of splendor, but I knew that my mind would not allow me to achieve such a restful status.

The idea faded from my mind as I continued down the highway in what can only be described as a driver's coma. Slack jawed and mentally detached, my car cruised on towards home, towards a restful yet somehow energetic evening. It was then that I realized what I wanted to do. Since going home and being useless wasn't an option, only something productive would do. That light, the light from my day dreams, the light that penetrated the trees and escaped the shadow of the house next door, that was the small start of the fall light. The earth had moved enough that now the light bent and fell in pleasurable ways. Buildings cast half in shadow and half in an orange glow wrought by the waning sun beckoned to me. But where to go? Where in the city would I be best suited for taking pictures of such a lovely event? My mind was now awash with memories of other places that tended to look good at this time of year. It was overwhelming, Portland was such a picturesque place. The first thing to happen was to get those fucking pants off. My trusty Levi's were no doubt feeling neglected being all balled up on my bedroom floor. No, they would be joining me on my journey.

My car rumbled home. I ducked inside and changed my pants. I assembled my camera bag, and in a flash I decided that I would go to industrial south east and see what sort of photographic damage I could do. My pictures lately had really been bothering me. Every time I looked at them after a shoot, all I could see was how horribly mundane and boring they were. The framing was off, the shadows non-existent, contrasting colors were an unknown to me anymore. All of the pictures were trash. Gone were the days where I could just press the shutter button and amaze myself. I had some success with recent engagement photos that I had taken of friends of mine. They were pretty decent, mostly because my subjects worked so well with one another. It occurred to me around that time that they were decent pictures because it was a new type of photography to me. Since I was inexperienced and clumsy with people, I was willing to make mistakes and take chances. To that point, I had no idea what I was doing so there was no memory of a photo taken long ago that was nice at the time. There was nothing to compare against so there would be no disappointment. I felt on the outs with myself because I hadn't taken a picture I liked in months. Slowly it dawned on me that I would have to start taking risks and challenging myself again. Except this time, the risks would need to be calculated rather than accidental. My 'fun because its new' attitude would have to go.

I parked my car on Stark, just off of MLK. Traffic was heavy going eastbound on Stark from the highway off ramp, but parking was a breeze. I assembled my scattered supplies and bumbled my way out of my car. As my feet touched asphalt, I could hear a freight train sounding it's horn between the ancient warehouses and highway overpasses that webbed the east side of the Willamette. The buildings caught and amplified the already deafening blow of the horn. This was a scene I wanted to avoid. I had already tried my hand at taking pictures of the train, but found that I still wasn't quite sure how to capture the enormity of such a serene beast in such a closed-in environment. So I walked parallel to the tracks, only several blocks to the west so that I could avoid the temptation to get stuck watching the train and wasting the precious light of the idyllic fall afternoon.

From 09.28.11 Fall

After a few minutes of wondering I realized what my subject was to be: buildings. I had tried my hand at photographing buildings before, but without much satisfaction. My problem, I deduced, was that a building was not like a flower or a cat. It was not small, it was not afforded the gift of free will, nor was it able to sway and shake in the wind. It could not be easily manipulated by any power that I possessed. Although I did prefer to not stage my photos, I had generally taken comfort in the idea that most of what I felt successful at taking pictures of were objects that I could, if desired, move freely about. That is to say, I could either pick up and move the object, or I could move my body fully around the area of the object. This is rather difficult to do with a building, especially when there are other, sometimes larger buildings in the way of a potentially wonderful shot. But today, the decrepit, urine stained buildings living under the shadows of the bridges of Portland called to me. The streets were more or less empty, and I felt free to move about in ways that didn't seem likely in other parts of town. I felt the buildings aging in front of me, I could see it. The mix of old painted adverts on large brick canvases mixed appropriately with the new redevelopment of these well used buildings, and the sun light was deep and low. Shadows were everywhere to be found, yet the ambient light was such that little detail got lost.

I wondered on through empty lots, past impromptu homeless camps, around the urban scene finding shots that I hadn't considered before. I took a picture of a discarded shoe. This was a big step for me, pun intended. That sort of trash, this obvious decay of some person's life was generally a taboo thing for me. I found it to be too cliche. But that afternoon it seemed appropriate. Continuing on my trash theme, I had a nice session with a pair of trash cans outside of a bar. At first, I saw the street. It was desolate of people, but there were many parked cars. It drove me nuts; I could see the street without the cars in my mind and I thought how beautiful it would be to just see this landscape in it's natural state without the presence of or even any evidence of people. Then I saw the cans. Nicely green, set in front of a yellow-tan wall that looked like it had at least a dozen layers of paint on. There were several grates set in the wall just off to the left of the cans, and they provided a nice break in the otherwise smooth texture of the building. My several minutes spent with the trash cans were my favorite of this session by far.

From 09.28.11 Fall

I continued to find buildings suited to my pleasure, sometimes stopping to take more detailed photos of strange portholes or funny looking street signs. Eventually I found myself at the train tracks, under more bridges. The obligation to try some sort of vanishing point crap was too overwhelming, so I got down on my knees in the middle of the tracks and clicked off a few. I moved then to the bridges them selves. I have always been amazed at the look of these roads in the sky, admired the ability of human ingenuity and the glorious rigor of physics that allowed these spindly structures to support themselves, and the cars that needed them. My camera moved up, and I moved around, taking pictures over several blocks and of several over passes and bridges.

By that time, the sun was sneaking back into its diurnal hiding place and I felt I should do the same. The walk back seemed to take longer than the walk to, and on the way I found another interesting building that beckoned me. It was large and not a uniform shape, its bright yellow surface greebled with windows and false awnings. The building was massive, much more so than its neighbors, and presented an impressive sight when bombarded with the dying light of the sun. I didn't even try to frame up the whole thing. It seemed unnecessary. I pointed the camera up and took shots of just part of the building. The details were much more impressive than the whole, which would have been impossible to take a picture of completely without using some photographic devilry.

From 09.28.11 Fall

Minutes later, I was back to my car. I felt satisfied. At home, I put the pictures on my laptop and began to color correct as needed. Many of the pictures had too much color, so I made them black and white. It is sometimes amazing what a little desaturation can do for an otherwise bland photo. I looked back over the day's collection and felt good about it. I felt good that I didn't just go home and start drooling on the couch pillows. Chances were taken without regard for failure, and I felt like I made good choices. This was going to be a good fall for pictures.

Change of Shape

I changed my routine today. I made a choice that could very well change the course of history, an event so epic that I can hardly breathe waiting to see what happens next.

I tried a new coffee shop.

Its funny. I've been watching the progress of the budding business since they started noticibly working on the building since last Julyish. I couldn't figure out for the life of me what they were trying to do to the place (and from the outside it is still not completely clear). It was obvious that much love was going into the remodel, but the intentions were vague. New siding, paint, and the zen-like grooming of the patio-to-be on the west side of the building still did not betray the true intention to be. The potential seemed endless for a new business just short blocks from The Bonfire and The Goodfoot. But as time progressed, it became less clear exactly what our neighborhood was gaining. The fresh, historic-pastel green color denied any suspicions. The sign, located on the east side of the building, simply read Wm. Landauer, Groceries, Cigars and Tobacco. What did we have on our hands here?

Simply from the look of the facade, I was able to make an assumption of the vague identity of the minty, nonpareil colored building; a coffee shop. Finally, in late January, the mystery business exposed itself, and the public was allowed a full view. I, of course chose not to delve instantly in my new neighbor, but rather let the suspense ferment. I went in today, weeks later, on what I have determined is exactly the single most unlikely day for me to choose to visit a brand new would-be hangout. See, I just started a new schedule yesterday. I've been in the swing of the 7-am opening shift. I have had a highly prescribed detail everyday. Up at six, shower, out of the house by six-thirty, coffee at Cooper's by six-35 (sorry about the betrayal!) , work by seven to seven ten. Traffic on 205 is predictable, but my schedule is immobile. NOW I close on Wednesdays and Saturdays. Saturday is not an issue. But I have to open Thursday mornings, so my Wednesday turnaround represents obvious issues.

So today of all days, at the last minute, I decided that a switch up was in order. As I drove right past Wm. Landauers, intending to proceed right to my regular and familiar barista, Valerie, at Cooper's, I realized that today was the day. I whipped the corner at the next street and found a parking spot bhind a dilapidated '89 Mazda 323 hatchback. Here I was, facing a memory I had been building for a solid eight months. What was I to expert from this? Fireworks? Naked girls? Maybe the worlds best coffee, served at rock bottom prices.

I found none of these things. Instead I found a coffee shop in a hot neighborhood dead at primetime, average prices, and a more than stubborn pump pot. No joke; it took me no less than ninety secods to fill up a 16oz cup of black madness. Pump, pump, pump. At first. I thought the pot was dry, but when my seemingly futile pumping continued to yield coffee, I realized it was all just part of the dark threat of being late to work. The pot played out, and I was on the road with my joe.

In retrospect, I feel like this story is anticlimactic. I came, I saw, I had my coffee. What else ils there? The coffee, frankly, was tastier than Cooper's slightly bitter and sometimes overwhelming roast. But I'm not convinced I have a new "spot". I will, however, choose Landauers over Mojos when I want to stay close to home. At this point, I'm not ready to give up the Coopers' sure bet to a new business that doesn't even have the word 'coffee' plastered flippin' anywhere on the building. Wm. Landauers, I have faith, but I will not take stock until you have proven thy self.

Thank you, Interweb

I'm in the middle of trying to buy tickets for Elton John and Billy Joel at the Rose Quarter in November. I went to the Rose Quarter website to buy the tickets. Everything was going smoothly until I tried to pay for the tickets. No go. The website says something about my credit card information was incorrect, so I went back, reviewed all of the information. Everything was correct, so I hit the submit button again. Maybe you can see where this is going. Again, no good. The information was all correct, so... submit. Nope. Review again, no go. So I try using a different email address and nope. Then I find out that my card has been charged three times! My account with the Rose Quarter website says that I have no pending ticket orders. So here I am $1200 in and no tickets. Right now I'm on the phone with ComcastTix trying to figure this crap out. They tell me that they also show no tickets have been order, and so have to transfer me to customer service. I'm on the phone to them for the fourth time and everytime they try to transfer me to customer service, all I get is a dead phone line. Now they are transferring me to a supervisor, again, dead phone line. This time I'm just going to stay on the dead line for a couple of minutes to see what happens. Ok, I couldn't do any more dead time so I'm calling back again. This time the representative sounds a bit more competant. I explain my dilemma once more, and she explains about pending charges and no tickets have been ordered. Now I'm hold while she does something, she didn't explain. If nothing else, I get to listen to classical music. Now I have a supervisor and she says the same thing everyone else has been saying. But now I ask her if we can try again over the phone. I give her the credit card information and again, zip. So something is up. Card has been tried at least four times now and still no tickets. This internet business is really starting to get to me. Now I have to wait until Wednesday to try again and I'm sure by that time I'll be out of luck for good seats. Thanks, Al Gore. What a monster you've created.

Welcome to César Chávez Boulevard

Oh, Sam Adams, how I love the, how I wish the weren't a blabbering fool.  Oh, how you give the gift of diversity whilst you remove our own city identity.  Shall I compare the to a racial whitewasher, taking what was once unique and personal, and transforming it into an international renaming fest?

Ok, not Shakespeare (and maybe not even grammatically correct. But I think you get it.)

Yesterday on the radio I heard the first of a plan to rename South East 39th avenue (running from Sandy Boulevard in the north to some ungodly place south of Trader Joes by Holgate).  The new name: César Chávez Boulevard / S.E. 39th Av.  I mean come on!  In the name of diversity, Sam Adams?  For the sake of our Latin American community?  Please!  I am by no means trying to put down or disenfranchise the Hispanic community in Portland or the rest of the country.  I am proud that America continues to diversify.  My beef is this: if you want to promote diversity and pride in heritage, then don't change those things that we are borne of.  South East 39th avenue is a highly recognizable and uniquely Portland street.  It is part of who we are as Portlanders.  I feel as if Mr. Adams is trying to say, "39th Av. was the white Portland, now, here you have César Chávez Boulevard, the integrated Portland."

Again, puh-leaze.

If you are trying to pledge some sort of symbolic homage to this city's diversity, then why don't we have more Latin-American inspired, city funded festival and art installations?  On the East side.  No more of this Downtown-centric bull.  Ironically, I believe that if Adams wanted to make a bigger statement, he would have chosen a downtown inspired street to be named.  How about City Hall at Chávez and Main?

Safeway Bluesfest 2009

Kudos to Safeway for their sponsorship of 'Safeway Bluesfest 2009'. This guy steals from Safeway every day, so as a penalty, they decided that his admission should be $10 and four cans of food. Unfortunately for Safeway, all he could offer was $4.27 in dimes and some scratched up, stolen drumsticks.